


Carrying Small Stones

by miss_aphelion



Series: Tony Stark’s Guide for the Care and Feeding of Recovering Assassins [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Past Torture, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-05 01:30:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15159440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_aphelion/pseuds/miss_aphelion
Summary: "I'm here to kill you, Terminator," the Handler told him after a brief pause, "does that compute?"He caught his breath as the intention became clear. He had been threatened with this many times over the years. They had always stated it as though it should be something he would want to avoid, but he had always been disappointed when they never followed through.To imagine an end to this was all that he had.“Okay,” he said.(Different POVs and missing scenes for Dig No Graves)





	1. Bucky POV, Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is a collection of [Tumblr prompts](https://missaphelion.tumblr.com/tagged/prompt-fic) for Dig No Graves. It will probably not make sense without having read that thing first. I was going to wait to post these here, but I received so many awesome prompts I ended up writing a lot more than expected! So I'll be posting them here every day or so, I've got about five almost done at this point! 
> 
> I'll probably shut down the requests this weekend so I can focus on finishing Dig No Graves, but I may open up for requests again once it's finished if anyone is still interested! 
> 
> This first one was prompted by lilianox7: If I could request something, I'd like some Bucky POV? Especially from the beginning, when he's just out of cryo? Since he is apparently very aware of his surroundings, and probably has his own ideas about whats going on... Or his thoughts about Tony maybe? That would be great ^^

**Timestamp #1: Bucky POV, Chapter 1**

No one caught him, but that wasn’t unusual. The unusual part was when no hands immediately reached to grab him and drag him away. He sucked in air through the mask, breathing through the pain.

The ice still clung to him, sending pinpricks across the surface of his skin. His shoulder ached where the arm attached, as the numbness began to fade. 

It took him a moment to realize someone was speaking. He knew his inattention would not be received well. 

“—ake off the mask—“ 

He reached up shakily to unclasp it and let it drop to the floor. He was not allowed to remove the mask himself, but he had been ordered to remove the mask. He waited to see if he would be punished. Sometimes, it was a test. 

He held himself steady, because he was not strong enough yet to push himself up, but he had to do something or he would surely be punished. When no commands were given, he chanced a question. “Are you my new Handler?” he asked. 

He was not supposed to ask questions—but he was punished if he assumed someone was Handler and they were not, and he was punished if he received a new Handler and did not properly acknowledge them. The punishment for asking questions would be less than the punishment for that. Slaps hardly hurt at all. 

“I’m not your Handler,” the voice said. It had a weary, mechanical edge. “You killed my parents, asshole. You killed my mom.” 

He forced himself to look up then. The man was in a suit of armor, and his face was hidden. He catalogued the movements of the suit and the weapons at the palms of the hands and the wrists. It was technology that Hydra did not have the last time he was awake. 

“Your parents were targets?” he realized. It wasn’t unusual for Hydra agents to engage in nepotism and then turn on each other. It had happened before. “Then you require a mission report?"

He had not been punished for the last question, but this one enraged the new Handler. The Handler listed out the names as though he expected him to recognize them. He wondered if perhaps the Handler had not fully been briefed on post-mission procedures. Or perhaps he had misunderstood. Perhaps the mission was not complete. 

“Are they my targets?” he asked. 

The Handler edged away from him. "You're a few Fudgsicles short of a well-stocked popsicle cart, aren't you?" 

‘Popsicle cart’ sparked a vision that razed his brain with pain, a small white cart on a street corner stained with sepia. As quickly as it came, it was gone. ‘Fudgsicles’ meant nothing to him, it did not even sound like a real word. He braced himself for pain, because he could only fail in whatever it was his new Handler was asking of him. “I do not understand your commands. Please restate.” 

"I'm here to kill you, Terminator," the Handler told him after a brief pause, "does that compute?"

He caught his breath as the intention became clear. He had been threatened with this many times over the years. They had always stated it as though it should be something he would want to avoid, but he had always been disappointed when they never followed through. 

To imagine an end to this was all that he had.

“Okay,” he said. 

The Handler went very still, his blank mechanical eyes staring back at him. Briefly, he wondered what the Handler behind them might look like—but he was not supposed to wonder about things. He bit the question back. 

“Okay. I tell you I came here to kill you and your response is ‘okay’?” the Handler demanded. 

He didn’t know what he’d done wrong. Perhaps he’d been too informal. He made sure to keep himself steady as he prepared a proper response. “I am being decommissioned. I understand. I will comply.” 

The Handler stumbled away from him then, heading back towards the computers. He frowned as the Handler left, wondering why he was leaving right when he’d finally understood his purpose. He was prepared to die. Death did not frighten him. 

Life was painful. Death sounded like relief. 

The Handler began holding a conversation with a bodiless voice. He tilted his head as the Handler made his way around the controls. He was bypassing them, not using the regular command centers. Someone with authorization would not need to do that. Someone with authorization would not have left the soldier on the ground unattended. 

The Handler and the bodiless voice seemed to have no trouble accessing the records despite not using any of the proper codes, however. He turned his eyes away when he saw the information was about his past. He had no past. He was not allowed to remember. It was better that way. 

“Okay, new plan,” the Handler said as he approached him again. The Handler kneeled down in front of him, which was unusual. Everything about him was unusual. “I don’t really get my jollies from murdering brainwashed torture victims. So, you know, no decommissioning for you.” 

It happened every time. He did not know why he thought this time might be different. He usually did not let himself get drawn into any promises that were made to him, and he wondered now if this was all just a trap, an experiment to test his reactions. He had been tested this way before. 

“What is my mission?” he forced himself to ask. It was the one question he didn’t get into any trouble for. 

“We’re going to get you the hell out of here. That’s the mission,” the Handler told him firmly. 

He frowned as he tried to understand what the intention of that kind of mission could be, and then startled when the Handler abruptly pulled the faceplate on his mask up. 

The new Handler was familiar in a way that meant he should recognize him, but didn’t. He didn’t look like he was expecting. His voice had been so irreverent, but to look at him, he seemed so sad. The Handler was watching him with wide eyes filled with so much pain that he wondered for a moment if he was a weapon, too. 

He knew he couldn’t remember much, but even still he could not recall ever seeing eyes like that before. They seemed almost kind. 

“Come on, let’s get you up,” the Handler said. The Handler’s voice, without the suit, was pleasant and calm. He liked the sound of it, though he didn’t trust it. 

He’d had Handlers that had sounded kind before. Pierce—he was not allowed to call him Pierce, he was not supposed to remember—was soft spoken and polished and rarely raised his voice. He had thought he was kind, once, too, but the casual punishments had proven that theory incorrect. 

But when the new Handler helped him to his feet he was gentle, and his hands, even covered in metal as they were, were more careful with him than he could remember anyone ever being. 

This Handler was not Hydra, that was now clear. Protocol dictated he incapacitate him and find the nearest ranking officer. The punishment for doing anything else would be terrible beyond the pain even of the Chair. He had been punished like that before. The only bit of memory to survive it had been the sound of his own voice screaming. 

“You still with me?” the Handler asked, as he tried to usher him through the halls. 

Bodies littered the floors, but he could see they were still breathing. They would come for him when they awakened. He wondered if maybe when they found him this time, they’d kill both him and the Handler with the kind eyes. He wondered if he’d even try to stop them. 

He looked down where the Handler had wrapped an arm around his waist to hold him up. He had to make a decision—this could be a trap, this could be a test, this could lead to something even worse. Could something be worse? 

“Hey, look at me,” the Handler said kindly. “I can help you, but you’ve gotta work with me. Okay? We’re almost there.” 

Almost where, he almost asked. Instead, he forced his feet to move. 

He didn’t know where he was going, but it was hard to imagine it could be worse than where he’d been.


	2. Bucky POV, Between Chapter 6-7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is for an anon: Does that mean you'll do opv. Like a bucky pov, maybe first time he thought Tony was attractive or when he tries to reconcile the public Tony with the private Tony?

**Timestamp #2 (Bucky POV, somewhere between Chapter 6-7)**

The lab was an amazing place—there were so many things here to look at and learn, and he wanted to know all of it, but he couldn’t bring himself to take his eyes off Tony.

He was standing in front of one of the holoscreens, moving and spinning pieces of his latest suit into place with no hesitation, like his mind was already twenty steps ahead and his hands were still trying to catch up. Bucky had known since before he knew hardly _anything_ that Tony Stark was physically attractive. Pepper’s friend had helped him learn what that attraction meant. 

But it was more than that. 

There were all kinds of beautiful people on the internet, and they didn’t do anything for him. There was something different about Tony. He’d seen him in videos on YouTube, walking down red carpets, smiling stiffly with his eyes hidden by colored and mirrored lenses, and he could pass as any other anonymous playboy. Bucky recognized it for what it was: a mask just as impenetrable as the one he wore when he was Iron Man. 

Bucky understood masks well. He wore them, too. 

Tony paused suddenly, before looking back at him with a frown. “What’s wrong?” he asked in concern.

“Just trying to figure out what you’re doing,” Bucky lied quickly. 

“Oh,” Tony said, and his eyes lit up. “Look, come here.” 

Bucky slipped off the stool and came to stand beside him. The light from the screens was painting both of them blue. Tony was movement and grace and _life_ , and sometimes Bucky couldn’t understand why he ever wasted his time on him. He didn’t deserve any of this, but he was going to hold onto it for as long as he could. 

“You see this bit?” Tony asked, his hands flashing out to enlarge a section in one quick move. “This is the internal structure for the repulsers on my suit. I’m trying to increase control over the strength, I want to be able to fly straight _and_ knock an apple off someone’s head from fifty paces. I don’t think that’s asking for much.” 

Tony spun the image, frowning slightly. “The issue is it’s drawing power from the arc reactor, and that’s basically unlimited within the bounds of a mission. I’d never go out without enough energy to last five years. So it wants to go big, but I want to refine it. I mean, I _have_ refined it. But things can always improve, you know what I mean?” 

“Not sure I do,” Bucky said gently, but Tony was too into the diagrams to even notice. 

Tony just spun the image again, zooming out, and started a simulation that showed how the repulser drew power through the arm and filtered it through all its tiny mechanisms, until it was bursting out in a beam of a light like a sun flare. 

“Isn’t it amazing?” Tony breathed, eyes on the screen. 

Bucky turned back to watch him. “Yes,” he agreed.


	3. Sam POV, Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon asked for: Oh I'd love it if you could write something about Sam and Steve reconnecting after Sam gets to the tower, maybe talking about Bucky but if they don't that's great to. Or if that doesn't strike your muse maybe what lead to sams realisation about Tony "everything that says you're self centered has got to be way off the mark,” Or both. Both is good.

**Timestamp #3. Chapter 20 Missing Scene (Sam arrives at the Tower)  
**

“How the hell did I get here?” Sam asked himself.

A couple weeks ago he was living in D.C., working at the Veteran’s Center, waving at the neighbors when he came home. Now he was standing outside the Avengers Tower, his head leaned back as far as it could go just so he could try to see the top. 

“Life comes at you fast,” Clint said sympathetically, resting a hand on his shoulder, and then fucking abandoning him, because he was sort of an asshole. 

So now he was in the tower lobby alone, holding a bag of broken wings, wondering when his life had spiraled so far out of control. Was it that morning run? Was it when he let them in? Was it when he, inexplicably, offered to help them rob a US army base and then question and threaten a US government agent? 

“All of the above,” Sam muttered to himself.

The lobby was about as ostentatious as Sam would have expected from Tony Stark, but there was an order to it that didn’t seem to quite match up. People walked back and forth in business attire like pretty much any other office in New York, though he noticed a heavy locked metal door off to the side that wouldn’t have been out of place in a bank vault. 

“Mr. Wilson?” a man called. He looked like a pretty regular guy, but Sam watched him warily anyway. Maria Hill looked like a nice lady, if you just glanced at her, and she was terrifying as hell. “Mr. Stark has been expecting your arrival. I’m Happy.” 

“Yeah, man, sure, I’m happy too,” Sam said warily.

“What? No, I’m—nevermind,” he said, shaking his head, before motioning to an elevator located off to the side from all the rest. “The residential elevator is this way. If you’re ready?” 

Sam followed the happy man to the elevator, and watched half in awe and half in disbelief as he had to use both a palm scan and a retinal scan in order to get it to open. 

“Jarvis, please take Mr. Wilson to Captain Rogers’ floor,” he said. 

“Of course, Mr. Hogan,” Jarvis said. 

Clint had warned Sam about Jarvis, the AI that apparently ran the entire building. Because of fucking course. 

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Wilson,” Jarvis told him once the elevator doors closed. 

“Yeah, you too, Hal,” Sam said. 

“Ah, a joke,” Jarvis said. “2001: A Space Odyssey, released in 1968. I’ve certainly never heard that one before, Mr. Wilson. Very funny. I’m laughing on the inside.” 

The AI was sassing him. He regretted everything. 

“We have arrived at Captain Rogers’ floor,” Jarvis announced, as the doors opened. He hadn’t even felt the elevator move. “At the moment, you have access to return to the lobby, or the training floor. Anywhere else will require an escort. If you need anything, please do not hesitate to ask. I assure you, I’m far more obliging than Hal.” 

He exited out onto the floor with a snort. Out snarked by an artificial intelligence, he should have stayed retired. Maybe it wasn’t too late to just turn around, no one really knew he was involved with the fall of SHIELD, he could still—

His train of thought broke when he caught sight of Steve. 

He looked like he hadn’t slept since the last time he’d seen him. For once, he wasn’t clean shaven. He had the makings of a beard, which may have looked sort of distinguished if it had been properly groomed. As it was, his hair was flying out in multiple directions like he’d been running his hands through it, and the beard was patchy and uneven. 

And that’s when he remembered why he was putting up with all this madness. Steve Rogers wasn’t gonna fall apart on his watch. 

“Steve,” he said quietly. 

Steve’s head shot up like he hadn’t actually heard him come in, and his eyes looked a little wild even as he broke out into a relieved grin. “Sam,” he said. “You came.” 

“Well, you left without goodbye,” Sam said wryly. “Had to make sure you were doing okay. Not feeling entirely reassured, I gotta admit.” 

Steve winced, reaching up to run a hand though his hair, which pretty much made it worse. “Yeah, I—“ he started, before trailing off. 

Sam stepped closer, finally noticing what Steve had spread out on the table in front of him. It was a mixture of drawings that looked like police sketches, old black and white photos, and what looked like mission reports written in Cyrillic. “What’s going on, Steve?” 

“Bucky’s alive,” Steve said, and he seemed to almost choke on his own words, but somehow he was still smiling as he said them. 

Sam understood the words. He knew who Bucky Barnes was. He may have visited that museum exhibit more than a few times prior to his chance encounter with the main attraction. But that didn’t help him comprehend it. 

“What?” he asked, ineloquently. 

“He’s been Hydra’s prisoner for the last seventy years,” Steve told him, his smile dropping away. He reached up with both hands and covered his nose and mouth, like he was trying to hold something in. 

“Shit,” Sam whispered, dropping down to sit across from him. “And he’s still…he was still alive?” He would have to be in his nineties, Sam figured. He couldn’t imagine. It was almost too terrible to think on. 

“Yeah, he’s…” Steve trailed off for a minute. “He’s alive. Hydra gave him a version of my serum. He looks just like he did in the war.” He pulled out a piece of sketch paper from under one of the files, and dropped it to the top of the pile. 

It was unmistakably Bucky Barnes, though his hair was a little longer. He was wearing a t-shirt instead of the iconic uniform, and smiling at someone off the edge of the page. Sam reached out and spun the drawing towards him. “That’s…incredible,” he said. 

He wasn’t sure if he was talking about the incredibly lifelike drawing or the fact that any of this was even possible. His mind seemed to be having trouble processing it all. It was both, probably. 

“I left him there, Sam,” Steve said brokenly. 

Sam looked up worriedly, and suddenly the fact that Steve was sitting here sleep deprived and wallowing when he’d just gotten himself a miracle made a whole lot more sense. “That’s not how I’ve heard that story,” he said gently. “Way I heard it, you did everything you could to try to save him.” 

“It wasn’t good enough,” Steve said. “I let him fall, and then I didn’t even go back for him.” 

Sam remembered reading about the mission that had cost Bucky Barnes his life in school. He’d fallen from a moving train in the Alps. He can’t imagine there was anything else that Steve could have done. Sam was still having trouble believing it was even possible that Barnes had survived at all. “That wasn’t your fault,” he said. 

“Everyone keeps telling me that,” Steve said, “but you don’t understand. You weren’t there.” 

“No, I wasn’t there,” Sam admitted. “But I was there with you at SHIELD. I was there with you on that highway when he had an entire Strike team on our tail. So I know you.” 

“He doesn’t,” Steve admitted quietly. “He doesn’t remember me.” 

Which, shit. Sam was way out of his league with this. “Steve, maybe—“ 

“He knows all the right things to say, but it’s like he’s playing a part,” he continued. “I don’t know what I’d do without Tony.” 

That threw Sam for a loop, and he blinked back at him. “Tony?” he echoed. “Tony Stark?” 

They hadn’t really talked about Iron Man before, but Steve had made enough snide little remarks about Stark that he hadn’t figured the two were really friends. 

“He’s the one that saved him,” Steve admitted. “Bucky killed his parents.” 

“Wait, _what_?” Sam asked incredulously. 

Steve looked up with wide pain-filled eyes. “Oh,” he said. “I forgot to mention that part. Hydra brainwashed him to kill for them.” He paused for a minute. “Don’t tell anyone that, okay?” 

“Jesus,” Sam muttered. “So Bucky Barnes killed the Starks. And Tony saved him?” 

“It wasn’t Bucky’s fault,” he said quickly. “He didn’t know what he was doing.” 

“I mean, okay, yeah, I get that,” Sam said, but he didn’t actually get it at all. Now that he had the backstory, he could remember seeing the man that had pulled Steve from the water as Natasha forced him into the helicopter. Now he realized it had obviously been Bucky Barnes, which, what a head trip. 

But he also remembered seeing the way he and Iron Man had kept looking to each other. They had not been using the sort of body language one would expect from a man and the murderer of his parents. 

Sam leaned forward, watching Steve in concern. “What do you need?” 

“They came for him, here. They tried to take him from me again,” Steve told him, before glancing back up. His eyes were cold and unpenetrable, and Sam wondered if this part of Steve was new, or had just been hidden. “I’m going to stop them.” 

It was like the moment they met, the moment he opened that door, the moment he took back his wings. 

His life was at another crossroads, and there was only one road he could take. 

“When do we start?” he asked.


	4. Steve POV, Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This request was written for someone on Ao3, who wanted Steve POV and a kind of “What????” moment. I tried to think of something clever or funny, but since I first read the prompt my mind just kept getting stuck on this: Steve trying to reconcile the Bucky he knows with the Bucky he has now, and realizing there’s still a lot he doesn’t know about either of them.

**Timestamp #4 Steve POV, Missing Scene Chapter 22**

He’d come here to yell at him for being so reckless, and he wasn’t really sure how things had gotten so far off track. But Bucky wasn’t making it easy, he just just kept good-naturedly nodding at him while he searched the kitchen for something, apparently entirely unconcerned with Steve’s wrath.

Steve wasn’t used to people not stopping to listen to him when he got angry. 

Well, not since Bucky, who always just sort of let him rant and then would look over at him and ask if he was finished yet. 

Anyway, Steve wasn’t entirely oblivious, so he knew that he didn’t really have any right to lecture Bucky on anything in the first place. Him lecturing _anyone_ on being reckless was the height of hypocritical, but this was _Bucky_. And Bucky had always been the steady, cautious one. He was the one Steve could send up into the trees to cover his six while the rest of them went storming in, until that time he got careless and sent him down a line to a speeding train instead. 

But he wasn’t thinking about that right now, or he wouldn’t be able to think about anything else. 

Right _now_ , he was trying to figure out why Bucky was pulling out one of the kitchen drawers to tug out a stack of colored paper straws that had been hidden beneath it. 

“You can keep yelling at me if you want, I mean, I don’t know _why_ , but if it makes you feel better you can,” Bucky told him, which was underhanded and passive aggressive and so _Bucky_ that Steve wanted to either roll his eyes or cry, he couldn’t even decide. “But first, I want you to try one of these.” 

“You have a secret stash of…candy straws?” Steve asked, successfully sidelined from his objective even though he knew exactly what Bucky was doing. 

“Yes,” he said. “Don’t tell Pepper,” he added after a moment, looking shifty. He frowned when Steve still didn’t reply. “You’ve been in the future so much longer than me, don’t tell me you haven’t even tried a Pixy Stix?” 

“Uh, no?” Steve answered warily. “What is it?” 

“Well…flavored sugar, basically,” Bucky admitted, then tossed him a grin as he ripped the end off one of them. 

“You don’t like sugar,” Steve told him, nonplussed. 

Bucky froze, the Pixy Stix held between his teeth, his eyes going wide like he’d been caught at something. He reached up to slowly to pull it down. “Uh, okay?” he said. “I sort of do, though?” 

Steve blinked at him for a moment before he realized what he’d just said. “Right,” he said quickly. “Right, of course. I didn’t mean…” 

Bucky tilted his head as he watched him, and Steve recognized the calculating look in his eyes—it was just the first time it had ever been directed at him. Bucky used to know everything there was to know about him. “Here,” he said, tossing him a red one. “Try one.” 

Steve caught it out of the air and reluctantly shook some of it out. It was a little too sweet, but good enough, he supposed. It was just a little hard to pay attention, because all the while, a sneaking suspicion was winding itself around his mind. How much of this new Bucky was really new, and how much had Bucky just been hiding from him before this? 

He hadn’t known Bucky liked boys as well as girls, never would have suspected it in a million years, the way he’d carried on with every pretty girl that had ever glanced his way (and there were a lot that had). Steve didn’t _care_ , even before he’d woken in the future, it wouldn’t have changed a thing between them. But if he could hide that, what else had he kept from him? 

How much of himself had he hidden away to keep Steve safe?

Steve thought of the things he used to know: 

Bucky didn’t like sweets, he told Steve so every time they only had enough money for one: _“Ah, come on, Stevie, you know I don’t really like it anyway, you’re the one with the sweet-tooth, just take it already”_ , he didn’t mind staying home with a bed-ridden Steve every time he was too sick to go to a ball game: _Who wants to stand around yelling the whole time anyway? I’d rather just wait and see who won_ , he was fine after being tortured for weeks: _They didn’t do anything, I swear, was just a bit sick before they tossed me into isolation, but you got to me in time_.

Steve had _never_ gotten to him in time. 

This was what Steve knew now: 

He’d left Bucky behind when he fell: _They found me before you woulda gotten to me anyway._

Their entire history was a catalog of all the times that Bucky had saved him in a hundred different ways, and all the times that Steve had tried to save him back and fallen just a little too short. 

“It’s just candy, Steve,” Bucky told him slowly, frowning over at him with his face scrunched up in a way so familiar that it made his heart ache. “You don’t gotta look at me like I’ve grown another arm.” 

Steve started to reassure him, then paused, rewinding what he’d just said. “I can’t believe you just said that,” he told him, breaking out into a reluctant, but unstoppable grin. 

Bucky grinned back at him, wide and mischievous. “I mean, technically, Helen grew it. Not me. So…” 

“You’ve been spending too much time with Tony,” Steve told him. 

Bucky laughed brightly, moving past him towards the living room. “Not possible,” he countered simply. 

Steve followed him over to the couch, standing beside it awkwardly while Bucky threw himself down onto it like he didn’t have a care in the world. Bucky was so _comfortable_ here. Tony’s tower had always set him on edge—everything was too sterile, too glossy, too new. “About that…” he started. 

“You gonna give me the take it slow speech?” Bucky asked, raising an eyebrow, back to worrying at the Pixy Stix with his teeth. “You? You who fell in love with Carter the first week in?” 

Steve opened his mouth to protest, and then sighed. He apparently couldn’t lecture Bucky about _anything_. “So you and Tony then…?” Steve asked, instead. “You’re really—“ 

“It’s a little soon to try and define it, Stevie,” Bucky told him wryly, but the way he was avoiding meeting his eyes had Steve pretty sure that wasn’t true. 

“Well, you know I’ll support you in anything,” he told him. 

Bucky shrugged in a way that Steve worried meant he _didn’t know that_. 

“Bucky,” Steve started, his voice nearly breaking, as he dropped down onto the couch beside him. “I just want you to be happy. I don’t care who you want to be with, and I don’t want you to pretend to be something you’re not. Things are so different now…you don’t have to hide anything from me, okay?” 

Bucky let out a shaky breath, staring at his Pixy Stix like it held all the answers to the universe. “Yeah, okay,” he said quietly, awkwardly scratching at his ear. “I mean, me too.” 

“You’ve always accepted me for who I was,” Steve told him. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to do that for you, too. You were always too busy taking care of me to let me take care of you. Even after Azzano I never really…” 

Steve trailed off, thinking back to all those signs he’d missed about what Bucky had been through, about his state of mind and all the physical differences he’d reasoned away. “I’m just sorry, Buck.” 

“If I kept things from you,” Bucky started haltingly, in a way that Steve knew meant he absolutely remembered keeping things from him, “it was because I thought it would keep you safe.” 

Steve sighed and fell back against the couch, bumping Bucky’s shoulder as he settled. “We’re a pair, huh?” he asked. “Still just a couple stupid boys from Brooklyn, even after everything.” 

Bucky huffed out a laugh, before falling back against his shoulder. “Speak for yourself. Pretty sure you took all the stupid with you.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did,” Steve agreed, pressing his eyes shut like it might hold his emotions in. “God, I’ve missed you, Buck.” 

“I would have missed you,” Bucky promised him, “if I could.”


	5. Bucky POV,  Between Chapter 4-5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> illusionarypandemonium asked for: A tiny little thing, but can you please do Bucky's discovery of Pixy Stix? They're just so weird, as candy and as a human creation, and I would love to see Jarvis and Tony trying to get him to try one out.

**Timestamp #5: Chapter 4-5 (Bucky POV)**

The soldier known as Bob was alone in the penthouse.

Well, not entirely. Jarvis was there, part of the building, but Bob couldn’t see him. The open spaces of the penthouse always seemed so much larger when he was by himself. He didn’t like it. 

Tony was down in his lab, and though Bob had been told he could go find him any time (he was almost positive the offer was genuine, and not a trap), he didn’t want to disturb him. He had heard Pepper telling Tony he was behind on his work, so he was trying to stay out of the way. Instead, he was trying to make himself useful by cleaning their space. It helped to clear his mind if he picked up the clutter that Tony left behind him like a whirlwind: the Iron Man breastplate leaned against the back of the couch, the stack of fanmail from children that he always responded to himself and had left spread all over the floor, the screwdriver that had inexplicably been left in the bowl of apples on the bar. 

Bob didn’t mind the disorder, exactly—in a way, it was comforting, but so was putting it back in its proper place. 

So when he was passing by the elevator and saw the three large cardboard boxes that had been stacked there between the time he’d dropped something off in the kitchen and come back, he stumbled to a stop and frowned at them. 

“Jarvis?” he asked hesitantly. 

“Yes, Mr. Bob,” Jarvis replied promptly. 

“What are these?” he asked, leaning over them, feeling a little thrill as he did at being able to ask the question. Jarvis had told him he could ask him _anything_. He never got in any trouble for it. 

“Sir ordered you Pixy Stix in bulk,” Jarvis told him. 

“Oh,” he said, and frowned slightly. He reached up to rub at where the metal arm attached at his shoulder, trying to dull the pain there as well as distract himself. Tony was always trying to buy him presents, but Bob couldn’t repay him. He didn’t know why Tony would want to get him anything at all. “Why?” 

“Why, Mr. Bob?” Jarvis asked. 

“Why would he get them for me?” Bob asked. There were faded colorful pictures on the cardboard half hidden behind the shipping label. He wondered what a Pixy Stix even was. 

“I believe he thought you would enjoy them,” Jarvis explained gently after a moment. “You’re welcome to open them now.” 

Bob lowered himself to sit cross-legged and stared at the boxes for a moment. He didn’t think Tony would have gotten him something to be worried over. Tony was thoughtful and kind, and always trying to help him even though he didn’t deserve it. 

But he could feel his breath start to shorten as he tried to imagine what the box might hold. 

“Jarvis,” he forced himself to ask carefully, because he was allowed to ask now, “what is a Pixy Stix?” 

“It is a fruit flavored powdered sugar candy contained within a slim paper straw,” Jarvis told him. “It was first sold in 1959, and is currently produced by Wonka Confections.” 

It was _sugar_ , Bob realized. Tony was always bringing him sugary treats, though he usually said not to tell Pepper. Bob found it hard to imagine Pepper, who was sweet and kind and straight-forward, ever punishing them, but she did seem to have an irrational hatred of sugar. 

“And I won’t be punished if I open it?” he asked, just to be sure. 

He’d stopped asking Tony that, because it make him look sad. Jarvis never cared what questions he might ask, he just answered them with as much information as he could. 

“No, Mr. Bob,” he replied. “No one here will ever punish you.”

“Tony sends criminals to jail,” Bob pointed out. “I read about it. He’s caught killers.” 

“Do you plan on hurting anyone?” Jarvis asked him calmly. 

“No,” Bob said, but he wasn’t sure what difference that made. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t, when he was forced to. 

“Then forgive me, Mr. Bob, but I’m not sure what that has to do with opening a box of Pixy Stix,” Jarvis continued. 

Bob bit his lip, watching the box warily. Tony, Jarvis and Pepper all acted like he _wasn’t_ a criminal. But he knew what a criminal was. He knew what he’d done, even if he couldn’t really remember it. He knew they had been horrible, unforgivable things, like what he had done to Tony’s parents. Sometimes he dreamed of the things he had done, and he would watch himself do them. He would beg himself to stop. 

But he never stopped. 

“Your heart rate is elevated,” Jarvis said, sounding a little concerned. “Would you like me to call Sir?” 

“No,” Bob said quickly, “No, he’s busy. I’m fine.” 

He wasn’t fine, of course, but Jarvis let him get away these little lies. 

Anyway, it was just a box. It was a stupid _box_. He could open it if he wanted to. He didn’t need permission. Anyway, _he had permission_. 

“Mr. Bob?” Jarvis asked hesitantly. 

“I’m fine,” Bob said again, knowing his stupid traitorous heart was giving him away. 

His curiosity had always been a defect. Hydra used to test him mid-mission sometimes, ask him things he wasn’t supposed to know to see if he’d know them—if he didn’t, or said he didn’t, they’d laugh like it was funny. If he did, he’d go back to the chair. 

But Tony would never send him to the chair.

“Why don’t we watch a movie instead?” Jarvis asked suddenly. “We don’t have to open the boxes. Sir can open them, later, if you’d like him to.” 

Bob lifted himself onto his knees, caught the edge of the packing tab beneath the tips of the fingers on his real hand, and then ripped it off in one quick move. He pushed the cardboard flaps open and there they were, just candy straws, exactly as described. Nothing happened, he wasn’t in trouble. 

“What flavors are they?” Bob asked. 

Jarvis graciously decided not to mention his near anxiety attack. “They come in grape, Maui punch, orange, cherry, raspberry and strawberry. Sir was not sure which flavor you would prefer, so he ordered some of each of them.” 

_Some_ was something of an understatement. There looked to be hundreds, just in the first box. 

“Why does he do things like this for me?” Bob asked quietly. 

“He wants to make you happy,” Jarvis told him. “You deserve to be happy, Mr. Bob.” 

Bob didn’t, but it was a nice thing to say. Sometimes Bob didn’t understand how Tony could be so kind. “I do like oranges,” he said, leaning over the box to look in at them. 

Tony had given him a tiny orange a week ago. It had been _amazing_. Now there was an entire bowl of them on the kitchen table, and he’d been told he could have one whenever he liked. They had little stickers on them of cartoon oranges, and Bob had been secretly saving them to line them in a row on the last page of his journal. 

“I have never tried one myself, as I don’t have the necessary biological systems, obviously,” Jarvis told him, “However, according to internet chatter and reviews, they seem to be quite well loved. Some people are, quite frankly, a little obsessed with them.” 

Bob smiled slightly. He felt a kinship with Jarvis—they were both a little baffled by people, and not quite sure what it was to be one. But Jarvis was kind, too, and always trying to help him. “I guess I could try one,” he offered, “and I could tell you what it’s like.” 

“I would appreciate that, Mr. Bob,” Jarvis told him. 

Bob reached in and pulled out an orange colored one. He frowned at it for a moment, wondering how one was supposed to eat it. He supposed it was just like the sugar packets, though, and ripped off the end of one to look inside. The orange candy looked like miniature little crystals, and he shook some out into his real hand. 

Then he placed it on his tongue. It almost seemed to burst in his mouth, the flavor and sweetness flooding his mind before he even swallowed it down. It was wonderful, of course, he didn’t know why he had been worried. Tony only brought him wonderful things. 

“It’s like eating flavored sunlight,” he decided. 

“That is a very poetic description,” Jarvis told him. “Thank you for explaining it to me.” 

“I’m not sure what that means actually,” Bob admitted. 

“That’s okay,” Jarvis said. “You enjoyed it, didn’t you?” 

“Yes,” Bob admitted. “Do you think I could try another one?” 

“Once Sir learns you like them, I’m fairly certain we will never run out again,” Jarvis told him, his voice taking on that fondly wry tone it usually did when he spoke of Tony. “Have as many as you’d like. I am quite confident that your unique biology will prevent any unfortunate consequences of too much sugar intake, despite Ms. Pott’s repeated concerns.” 

“Okay,” Bob agreed, and reached for another one. “Maybe we just don’t tell her?” 

“She certainly won’t hear it from me,” Jarvis assured him. 

He’d tried all the flavors by the time Tony came off the elevator, and was just starting on his second orange. Tony had some kind of grease on his temple, and in a tuft of his hair, like he’d run his hand through it without remembering to wash it first. He looked tired, too, and Bob frowned, because he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Tony go in his room to sleep. 

He wanted to say something, to ask if he was going to get some rest, but that wasn’t his place. So he said nothing instead, and discreetly crumbled the too many empty Pixy Stix wrappers to push them in his pocket. 

Not that he was able to get it passed him, but Tony only looked down at him with something that Bob thought might be fondness. “Found the Pixy Stix, huh?” he asked. 

“These are definitely going on the list,” Bob told him.

Tony crouched down beside him, and pulled out a grape Pixy Stix. “You know, I’m still hoping to get to slot number one someday,” he said. 

“Then you should stop introducing me to the competition,” Bob told him, before he even realized what he was saying. He froze for a moment, a spike of panic causing him to freeze as he noted the insolence. 

But Tony didn’t slap him, he _laughed_ , and sat down next to him so their legs were close enough to touch. “Touché,” he said, as he leaned back to shake the entire grape Pixy Stix into his mouth in one go. 

And Bob realized, in a moment of absolute certainty, that Tony really wasn’t a handler, after all. 

Maybe this was what it was to have a friend.


	6. Natasha POV, Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon wanted: I'd be interested in knowing how the conversation between Bucky and Natasha (mentioned in chapter 26) went, The one where Bucky was apparently mooning over Tony and to which Natasha referred to as "It’s like listening to a lovesick thirteen year old".

**Timestamp #6 Chapter 26 (Natasha POV)**

“I’m just…hopelessly in love with him,” James told her.

“I heard you the first eight hundred times,” Natasha said dryly, as she ran her finger across her Starkpad to turn to the next page of her book. Not that she was able to get much actual reading done, because James had wandered in and then threw himself down on the couch beside her and hadn’t stopped talking since. 

He honest to god had even thrown his arm up to cover his eyes. So dramatic. If they didn’t start introducing him to some films other than Disney, he was going to become an actual _princess_. “You just don’t understand,” he told her. 

“Christ, Barnes, show some decorum,” she told him, looking up in disbelief. “You were trained better than this.”

“Fuck my training,” he said, which was fair. She heaved a sigh, giving up on her book. _Love is for children_ she’d said once, like it was something wise. But James had been through pain even she couldn’t imagine, he’d been hollowed out to the point there was nothing left but some tiny seed deep within him...and yet, love came so easy to him.

It made her wonder what was wrong with her. 

“I’m serious. I want to do something for him, but what can you get the man that has everything?” he asked, lifting his arm briefly to look over at her. “Nat? Nat! I’m actually asking.”

“Wrap yourself in a bow,” she told him slyly. 

James flushed, and immediately dropped his arm back to cover his eyes. It would have been adorable, if Natasha was the sort to find this kind of thing adorable. 

But she wasn’t, so it was mostly just pathetic. 

“Listen closely, James, because I’m only going to say this once. I’ve known Tony for years, and I’ve never seen him look this at peace. You make him happy. Whatever you’ve been doing, just keep doing it,” she said. “You don’t have to do have some grand romantic gesture.” 

“But he took me out to private dinner! He let me drive his car!” James cried. “There were robots, Nat! How do I compete with that? You _can’t_. There’s no competing with _robots_!” 

“Maybe the bow should be the only thing you’re wearing,” she suggested. 

“Uh, you’re awful,” he told her. “You’re the worst wingman ever.” 

“Shouldn’t this be Steve’s job, anyway?” she sighed. 

“No, because he’s the actual worst wingman,” James admitted. “He just keeps telling me to take it slow, and maybe not jump off the roof and make out with Tony in the middle night. Like, what kind of useless advice is that? It’s not like I could do it during the _day_.” 

“Fine,” she said, spinning to sit cross-legged on the couch, facing him. “You want my advice? Here it is. Tony has the big stuff, he buys it for himself. Don’t bother. You want to impress him? Do the little things. Make him food when he forgets to eat for twenty hours straight. Talk to him when he gets so lost in his work he starts to disappear. Lure him to bed with your wiles so he’ll actually get some sleep.” 

“That’s actually…that’s good advice,” James said, looking surprised. “Of course, my plan would end with less sleep once we were finally in bed together.” 

“I don’t need the details, Barnes,” she told him. “Tell it to your diary.” 

Then because he was a little shit, he just sat up, eyes going wide and earnest as he reached up to grip his shirt right above his heart. “I just love him so much,” he told her. “Have you ever seen him in his lab when he’s focused on his work, the little frown he gets, the way—“ 

“Oh my god,” she muttered, pulling away to smoothly get to her feet. “I’m going to go throw myself down the elevator shaft now.” 

“Okay,” James called cheerfully after her, “but it’s not going to do you any good! Tony set up high velocity nets at the bottom in case of any failures with the elevator or someone falling through the shaft.” 

She rolled her eyes, fighting back a grin, as she pushed a button for the elevator so she could make her escape. 

“Because he’s wonderful!” James shouted after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * If you’re curious, Natasha was _trying_ to read Gioconda Belli’s _The Inhabited Woman_ in this, though a reference didn’t make the cut. I read it in college, and it still haunts me in all the best ways.


	7. Bucky POV, Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> animaniac1017 wanted: Please give us more of pre-existing chapters from Bucky’s POV! I loved the last one you posted! Maybe one after Tony tells him to get some sleep and he can’t? Just his POV of that whole incident starting from when Tony leaves the room and ending when they’re watching movies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Bucky has an anxiety attack.

**Timestamp #7 Chapter 2 (Bucky POV)**

The mission was simple.

For the first time since the strange Handler had pulled him out of cryo, he knew what was expected of him. He knew what he was required to do. It should have been a relief. 

But he had not been trained for this. He could not remember how to sleep. 

“Mr. Bob,” the voice called Jarvis asked. Its accent was British, but that was misleading. He was an artificial intelligence, with no foreign allegiance. “Are you alright?” 

He went very still. He knew he was being monitored, at all times. Jarvis had broken into Hydra’s secure network in less than a minute, which meant its power was considerable and not to be underestimated. The Handler appeared to have left him alone, but he knew there was no alone here. 

He was used to that. 

“Mr. Bob?” Jarvis tried again. 

Bob was his codename, he recalled. Would ‘yes’ be the best response in this case? Handlers generally did not want to know if something was wrong unless it interfered with the mission. 

But his mission was to sleep, and he did not know how. 

“I can contact Sir—“ Jarvis began. 

He pressed his eyes shut, because of course. Jarvis was a spy, he would report his failure to their Handler. “I am fine,” he said, hoping it wasn’t too late. 

“Of course,” Jarvis said, sounding conciliatory. He wondered if he would contact the Handler anyway. He figured he would. 

This room he had been brought to was so strange. At first, he thought it had certainly been a mistake. This was where a person might sleep, he had no business being here. 

But it wasn’t his place to question. 

“We can turn the lights out, if you think that would help,” Jarvis suggested. 

He felt something cold spreading through him, ominous and shocking enough to send him stepping back away from the bed towards the exit. It was always dark, in the places they liked to put them. He wanted to tell him no, he didn’t want it to be dark. He turned and looked at the door, where it had been left open, as though he was not something that had to be secured somewhere he couldn’t hurt anyone he wasn’t supposed to. 

“Let’s leave them on then, shall we?” Jarvis said, his voice softer suddenly, and calm.

“Okay,” he agreed quietly. 

He wondered if he was being set up. The open door seemed like a lure for an escape attempt—they had done such things, before—but there did not seem to be anyone else here. The Handler, in his suit, would be a formidable enemy but he was not wearing it when he left. He could break through the glass windows that surrounded this whole place at any access point, and climb his way down. He knew he could survive at least a forty story fall without much injury. 

But if it was a trap, he would likely be caught. Tony Stark was intelligent, and knew what his capabilities were. He would not have left a way out if he wanted to keep him here. 

And if it was not a trap, if the things this new Handler said were true, then maybe there was no reason to leave. 

Either way, he needed more information before he did anything. He would play along for now. 

Which meant he needed to sleep. 

He carefully stepped further into the room. The walls were a muted light blue with tones of grey, a comforting and calm color and so different from the dark stone and fluorescent lights that he was so accustomed to. The bed itself had been made up deceptively simple. The blankets and sheets were solid colors, dark blue and white, but when he hesitantly reached out to touch them he could tell they were expensive by the refined texture. 

There was a chest of drawers on the back wall, with a lamp on top that had a shade made of stained glass. Art pieces were hung on the wall behind the headboard of the bed, in different mismatched colored frames. He glanced down at the carpet, which was soft and plush and unlike anything he could remember. 

He didn’t belong here. 

He went very still as he tried to keep breathing. He couldn’t show weakness. Weakness wasn’t allowed—it would be torn from him, if seen. So he stayed very still, afraid to touch anything. He tried to imagine getting into that bed, and he couldn’t. 

There was another door off to the side, and it was also open. He didn’t know if he was allowed to go there, but he approached it anyway. The Jarvis voice would tell him if he was not supposed to, but the voice said nothing else. 

It was a bathroom. There was a large shower and the floor was made up of three inch tiles in white and black that were cool to the touch. He stepped inside, and felt just a little bit less out of place. The Handler hadn’t actually said _where_ he needed to sleep, only that he should. The bed had been implied, but not specified. 

He wished he could take another shower. He had liked standing underneath the warm water, it had been an indulgence he could hardly comprehend. It would be nice to do again, but he had his orders. He would follow them. He always followed them. 

He lowered himself down, letting the palm of his real hand spread along the tiles as he used the other to steady himself. This felt familiar, but even still he wasn’t sure where to start. How did one go to sleep? He only knew cryo—where they did it to him. 

He tried closing his eyes, the way he always would when they strapped him down in cryo, so he wouldn’t see the ice creeping in. But it was dark with his eyes closed and he couldn’t see what might be coming, so he opened them again. 

That was when he knew he would fail. 

He could not remember failing a mission in the past. He displeased his handlers often enough, but never with his skills. He’d always completed his missions. There was never any doubt of that. He did what was asked of him. 

But he couldn’t sleep. 

The room felt too cold suddenly, too small. It was like the room they would take him to and spray him down with cold water when he returned from missions, even though it was nothing like that room at all. He sucked in a startled breath and scrambled to his feet, returning to the bedroom that he had no right to be in. 

“You seem to be having some difficulties, Mr. Bob,” Jarvis said, his voice quieter than usual, seemingly hesitant. Strange, to have programed an AI to speak gently. What could be the purpose of that? “Is there anything I can do to assist you?” 

He shook his head, though he wasn’t sure if Jarvis would see it or understand it, but he must have, because he said nothing else. He wanted to get away from here, he wanted to go back to the roof, where the air had been clear and cold and he could see in every direction, but he didn’t get to want things. The Handler had told him this wasn’t a cell, but handlers lied all the time. 

He stumbled over to the wall in the corner, and laid his hands and forehead against it as he tried to steady himself. He was careful not to use too much force, and damage the wall. He was going to be punished already as it was. 

“Mr. Bob?” Jarvis was calling. He was saying something else, but the words were lost beneath the sound of his heart, thundering through his ears. 

He was so broken he could not even _sleep_. Maybe the Handler would realize his mistake, and kill him after all. He turned so his back was against the wall, and then he let himself slide to the floor. He wrapped his metal fingers around his other wrist and pressed, hoping the pain would steady him, but it only made it harder to focus. He was so out of it that he didn’t even realize the Handler was in front of him, until he was already there. 

“—ob? What’s up?” 

_What’s up_ was slang, he had heard this before. His Handler was asking for a status report. He forced himself to breathe, so he could speak. “I tried to comply,” he explained, though he knew it would do no good. “I think I’m malfunctioning.” 

His Handler looked confused. “You mean because I told you to get some sleep?” he asked. 

“I don’t think I remember how,” he explained. It was hard to even imagine he could be capable of it. He didn’t know how to quiet his mind—even stripped of so much, he couldn’t get it to _stop_. 

“That’s okay,” the Handler told him, and he seemed to mean it. “Sometimes I forget that too.” 

“I’ve failed,” he explained, because the Handler did not seem to understand what was expected of them both. “You need to punish me.” 

He didn’t want to be _punished_ , but at least then it would be over. At least then he would know, and the uncertainty that had been plaguing him since the moment he followed this man out of the base would be gone. 

“Never much been one for S&M, I’m afraid,” his Handler said with an irreverent shrug. He did not know what S&M was, but could assume it was being used as a euphemism for punishment. “I find pain unpleasant and I’m sort of squeamish, so…how about we watch a movie instead?” 

“A movie?” he asked. The word was familiar, but he could not place it. 

“Yeah, a moving picture?” the Handler explained. “Stories that play out on the big screen?” 

“I—“ he started, before he was hit with a memory of a darkened room and a large screen, a black and white world bleeding into colors as some ghost beside him insisted it was _amazing_. Theaters, he remembered. People went to them to watch moving pictures. “I think I went to a theater, sometimes? There was a girl, and she walked into a world of color. “

“Wizard of Oz,” the Handler said. “Yeah, I might have heard of that one. Want to watch it?” 

He was shaking his head before he knew what he was doing, the echoes of that memory gripping him around his chest. “No, I—“ He went still when he realized what he’d done, and waited to be struck. 

“Okay, no problem,” the Handler said, instead, “sort of over that movie anyway. How about something new?” 

“Yes,” he said quickly, because that was a mission he didn’t think he could fail at. 

“Alright, I think we can manage that,” the Handler said, as he got to his feet. The Handler held out his hand then, and he went still, waiting for it to connect. 

Except it didn’t, he just kept his hand there, hovering between them. He glanced up to look at the Handler in confusion. 

“It’s not a trick,” the Handler said, like he could read his mind. He wiggled his fingers. “You take my hand, I pull you up. It’s simple.” 

“I can stand up on my own,” he informed him. It wouldn’t do for him to think he was so broken he couldn’t even manage that. 

“Humor me,” the Handler said, which was a strange phrase. He wasn’t sure exactly what it meant, but he had been defiant enough. He took his hand, and let himself be pulled to his feet. 

The sofa that the Handler led him to was almost as soft as the bed, but the Handler just threw himself down on it and then motioned to the empty space beside him like this was perfectly normal Handler behavior. 

He cautiously sat down on the other edge as far away as he could, up against the arm, and then stared down at his hands. 

“Jarvis, put on something from Pixar,” the Handler said, and then cast him a worried look, and spoke the rest out of the side of his mouth as though he thought he would not still be able to hear him. “Not one of those that starts off with dead people, though.” 

“Understood, Sir,” Jarvis said. “I think I have just the thing.” 

He looked up at the blank panel as it lit up and the movie began. The sound was jarring, at first, but the Handler seemed to notice and had the Jarvis voice lower it. The movie was some kind of animation, but it was nothing like anything he could remember coming across. It did not spark any memories he wasn’t supposed to have, either. 

_Something new_ , the Handler had said. And it was. It was a story about destiny and defiance, and finding a way to be free. 

It was called _Brave_.


	8. Natasha POV, Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon: I'd like to see some Bucky&Natasha interaction, maybe when Bucky's getting ready for the date? Thank you!

**Timestamp #8 Chapter 25 (Natasha POV)**

“You’re not wearing that,” Natasha said.

James just snorted, not surprised that she had suddenly appeared splayed across his bed. He was the only one she couldn’t sneak up on— _yet_. She always enjoyed a challenge. 

“I think I know how to dress myself,” he told her. 

She raised an eyebrow, running her eyes from his head to his toes. “I didn’t fix your hair for you so you could waste it on—I mean, I don’t even know what to call this. Nerd-chic?” 

“Yes,” he agreed, not offended in the least. “Tony doesn’t care how I dress.” 

“It’s not just him you need to do it for. Don’t get complacent,” she warned him, before switching seamlessly to Russian, “ _Those like us must always be on our guard_.”

It was always so hard to figure out where she stood with Barnes. Was she the mentor, or the protégée? The teacher, or the student?

Physically, she figured she was about a year older. Chronologically, he was old enough to be her grandfather. 

Experience wise, they were nearly equals. 

But there was an innocence to this iteration of James Buchanan Barnes. He’d been erased to a blank slate, and no matter how much he got back, some of that stuck. He’d built a new person, piece by painstakingly recovered piece, but the foundation he’d used to do it was barely a couple of months old. 

Natasha did not usually feel protective. There was Clint, of course. 

And then there was Steve. 

But there was a kinship she felt with James that she had never had with anyone else. They had a shared understanding of pain that was unique. It was not something she would have ever wished on someone else. 

She gracefully got to her feet, avoiding his eyes as she shook back her hair. “Where is he taking you?” she asked. 

“He wouldn’t say,” Bucky told her. 

“And you didn’t find out?” she asked, frowning at him. “Lazy of you.” 

“He wanted it to be a surprise, why would I—what are you doing?” he demanded, as she moved past him and began to search his closet. 

“First rule for facing the unexpected: when in doubt, go casual,” she told him. “It’s harder to blend in when you’re dressed to the nines.” 

“I’m not trying to _blend in_ ,” he said petulantly, and leaned up against the wall beside her. “What’s wrong with what I’m what wearing?” 

Natasha glanced back at him. He was wearing a t-shirt with a Pixar character on it, the one he liked so much, and a pair of ripped blue jeans. It was nice for any day of the week, but it wasn’t suitable by any means for something like this. 

“Nothing, in particular,” she allowed, before turning back to the closet. “You always want to have some piece of yourself in your armor, so you don’t forget who you are, you’ve just left a bit too much of it. And don’t fool yourself. It is _armor_ , and you need to treat it accordingly.” 

“It’s a date, not a mission,” he told her.

“We’re never not on mission,” she reminded him. “Not ever.” 

She grabbed a pair of black jeans, still casual, but nicer for the places Tony was likely to take him. She grabbed a hooded jacket and a blazer, and considered letting him keep the shirt he was wearing, but it was blue like the jackets and that was a bit too much blue. “Pick another shirt,” she told him, pulling out a couple black ones. 

He rolled his eyes, but grabbed one for some band that Tony liked. He pulled off his shirt, and replaced it with the band t-shirt. She watched him as he did, noting the scars that still scattered out from his shoulder, though there was nothing to indicate that his left arm was any different from his right. 

“If you’re gonna stare that hard, I’m gonna start expecting some kind of payment,” James told her wryly. 

“Sorry, I’m fresh out of dollar bills,” she said, giving a crooked grin. But she turned, allowing him his privacy. She knew how important privacy was, even if she could only give him the pretense of it. There was no helping that she'd already seen him at his worst.

She moved to the dresser as he got dressed, and looked at all the photos that had been spread out there. There were a couple from the forties, James and Steve, before and during the war, but most of them were new. James and Pepper lounging together in the large pool on the thirtieth floor, the photo obviously taken by Tony, considering the grin James was giving the lens. There was a candid photo of Tony in the lab, apparently holding a heated conversation with Dum-E. There was one with Tony, James and what looked to be Helen Cho—they were in one of the dining halls from the penthouse, all of them with their glasses raised in a toast. 

Beside the photos there was a Starkpad that had its backing removed, and pieces had been taken out and left carelessly beside it, the way a child might pull something apart to see how it worked. 

“Okay,” James said, and she turned back around. 

She assessed him carefully. It was better, very _contemporary_. Sometimes Natasha thought Steve used familiar clothes to shield himself from the new century, but James always seemed to go all in. Of course, James had started with no memories and nothing to lose. She couldn’t begrudge Steve for trying to hold on to all he knew. 

“You need shoes,” she said, glancing down at his sock covered feet. “Not sneakers.” 

He frowned at her, but grabbed his combat boots and waved at them. “Will these do?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, flashing a grin. “Good choice.” 

They gave the outfit just a bit of a dangerous edge, though no one would know, to look at him, how terrifyingly competent he was at killing. But then—that was the entire point. 

“And now you’re ready,” she told him, glancing over at him with approval. He looked _good_ , but not so good he couldn’t disappear into a crowd and blend in. If he needed to lose a tail, he could drop the blazer and put up his hood. She just had to make sure he had the tools—if something went wrong, she knew he’d know what to do with them. 

James glanced at the mirror as he shoved his feet into the boots. “I guess this is better,” he agreed reluctantly. 

“This is why you should always listen to me, James,” she told him.

He shook his head lightly, but tolerated her fussing when she reached up to straighten the collar of his blazer. “Why do you call me James?” he asked. 

“Given names are important,” Natasha said simply. 

“Should I start calling you Natalia then?” he asked. 

Natasha tightened her grip on his collar, her hands going clenched and still, though she gave nothing else away. “And where did you hear that?” 

“You dumped your entire life onto the internet,” James reminded her. “You read about me. Did you really think I wouldn’t read about you?” 

She reached up and gripped his chin, turning him back to face her firmly. “You don’t have to be Bucky with me,” she told him. “That’s why I call you James. But I can call you Bucky if you like. I’d certainly prefer you call me Natasha.” 

“No, I don’t mind,” he told her, gracefully slipping free of her hold. She watched him step back as he flashed her a slight smile. “I think I’ll keep calling you Nat, though.” 

She felt her lips quirk up without her permission. He reached back and gently grabbed her hand, squeezing it slightly. Most of the time, she merely tolerated touch—but this felt like something else, this felt like a spark of connection, like a promise of the sort of friendship that was nearly impossible for someone like her to find. 

“Thank you,” he told her earnestly. 

“It’s no trouble,” she promised. 

“I didn’t mean for this,” James said, and let her go. 

“Yeah,” she said, grinning slyly. “I knew what you meant.” 


	9. Thor POV, Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anon: if you're still taking prompts, I'm dying to know what Thor and Bucky talked about during the Tony and Bruce scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last of the prompt fills! But I'm going to leave this as a WIP, because there are a few other missing scenes I'd like to write and I may open prompts again after Dig No Graves is finished (if I'm still feeling inspired!). This is probably going to be my only Tony/Bucky series before I go back to my usual Stucky stories, but the closer I get to finishing Dig No Graves the more I realize I'm definitely having issues letting go of this verse! So there may be some other one-shot ficlets set here as well.

**Timestamp #9 Chapter 27 (Thor POV)**

The first thing he noticed about Starkson’s consort was that he moved soundlessly. He did not look like a warrior, at first glance. Clean shaven, he had what Darcy would call a ‘baby face.’ His clothes were unassuming, casual like Starkson always wore when out of his suits and suits of armor. He looked like one of the people that might stop him on the street, and ask for a photo. Deceptively young and carefree unless you paid close enough attention to his eyes.

But there were signs of his skill that Thor had long ago learned to take notice of: he moved like a wraith, across the room one moment, beside him in the next. And for all his play at admiring him, for all his stuttering attempts to introduce himself, he wasn’t _intimidated_. Most people, around him, were rightly wary. This one held himself without any concern for the damage Thor could so easily visit on him, even when Thor had moved to strike him down.

Which Thor knew from past experience likely meant that it would not be as easy to do as it appeared. 

He had to be a formidable warrior, for the enemies of the Avengers to have so ill-used him. His skills must merely be hidden, the way some warriors of Asgard chose to do. It reminded him of the Lady Natasha, who was tiny, and smiled so sweetly, but could best a Chitauri without breaking a sweat. 

If he looked close enough, he could see what stalked him. There was something inside of him, something like a shadow—it was as though he was just a single step ahead of it, striving to remain in the light. For a moment, he reminded him of his brother, but that comparison was not fair. Loki had his reasons for what he’d done, but those reasons had been his own. 

This Bucky, he had his choices stripped from him. It was the most terrible sort of betrayal, such a cowardly, dishonorable tactic, to twist one’s enemy to fight against his friends. More like what Loki had done to Clint Barton, than like Loki himself. 

Thor still had that trouble, though. He saw his brother in everyone. 

“I don’t suppose there’s anything you could tell me about Asgard,” Bucky said, brightly curious, and so earnestly despite all the pain that Thor could see raging beneath his surface.

They were sitting at the bar in Starkson’s kitchen, where Bucky had brought them drinks. The others had all gone to make their preparations for the battle ahead, but Thor was always ready to battle. 

And so was, it seemed, Bucky. 

“What would you like to know?” Thor asked gamely. 

People were always curious about Asgard, but strangely few actually dared to ask the questions. Starkson, at first, had refused to question him and lose the upper hand by admitting any semblance of ignorance, though he had been insatiable in his search for answers about Asgard after the battle of New York had been over and done: _What do you mean Asgard isn’t round and you can just walk straight off it? Jesus. So, what? You live on some magic space plane? That’s what you’re telling me? We have magic space planes now? Fuck my life—_

“Everything,” Bucky answered promptly, leaning forward. “I mean, I’ve never met an alien, before, I don’t think. I’ve got this memory of this Red Skull freak from the war, Christ, tore his face off right in front of me, it was traumatizin’, but I’m pretty sure he’d been human, once.” 

“Ah, yes, I believe I’ve heard that tale,” Thor said. “I can assure you, our faces are not removable, in Asgard.”

He stated it as though worried Bucky believed this was an actual concern, but Bucky saw straight through the deadpan delivery to his intent, and laughed lightly. “Well, that’s good to know,” he said. 

The other Avengers had learned to see through his play at ignorance as well. Starkson, in particular, sometimes looked like he’d like to drag him into his lab to force him to answer a million questions. There was a reason that Thor pretended to be dumb. Starkson hadn’t called him out on it, yet, and in any case Thor admittedly had very little knowledge of Midgard technology. 

“I dwell in Asgard,” he started, reciting the speech he had given so many times before, “it is a city of gold and beauty, but none of that is what makes it such a wonderful place. It is our people. There, we take care of each other. None go hungry, none are without rewarding work.” 

“That sounds nice,” Bucky said, a little whimsically. “Here…seems whatever bad things I remember from back in the forties, it’s all just gotten worse. I mean we’ve come far, don’t get me wrong. The medical advances are amazing. The technology is wonderful. But it’s all just the same things, different framing. And they keep saying we won the war, but I don’t think we did. We won a battle. We’re still losing the war.” 

Thor nodded sagely. He understood. He had been shocked by the children this world let go hungry, by the homeless that had no help, that it was the innocent that suffered the most from their wars. He had no idea how to help fix these things, it was not his strength. He could destroy an enemy, he could win _battles_. The war was something these humans needed to fight for themselves.

“I don’t know if this is a comfort, but do not believe we are some Utopia. In many ways, we are the same, we have just been around so much longer,” Thor admitted after a moment. “Even then, there is still mayhem, still murder. Asgardians are adventurous. Where there is no fight, we will search to find one.”  
“I’m sort of the opposite,” Bucky admitted quietly, and glanced away. “The fights just keep finding me.” 

Thor leaned forward in concern. “You do not need to join us,” he offered. In fact, he was certain Starkson would prefer it, and Captain Rogers, as well. Neither of them were pleased with the plan that would send Bucky back into the clutches of his enemy. 

“Yeah, I do,” Bucky sighed, looking back at him with a sad smile. His eyes looked suddenly old and depthless, and they brought to mind his mother’s—so world-weary, witness to so much horror, but when you looked at them, what hope was left to them was still the first thing you saw. 

“Yes,” Thor agreed quietly. “I suppose that you do.”

Bucky went quiet then, glancing down at his own hand. Thor could see it clearly then, that shadow within him—it was dark and powerful, and Thor’s respect increased as he realized the magnitude of what this man had overcome, of the power he had managed to cage. 

“But I don’t think that’s what you really wanted to know,” Thor said mildly, reaching out to grab the drink he had been given. “We’re not so different, wherever we begin—our stories and yours, they all spin the same webs.”

Darcy had often complained about his tamer stories of Asgard, of the peace there, of the golden halls. She liked to hear tale of the monsters, of the magic. 

“Now, the Bilgesnipe, on the other hand,” Thor began, leaning forward as he caught Bucky’s gaze, and watched that shadow start to slip away again, “I have never seen the like of here—“


	10. Natasha POV, Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one requested this one except for my crazy brain. I just really wanted to write Natasha and Bucky’s off screen confrontation from the charity ball, from before Bucky knew who he was.

**Timestamp #10 Chapter 10 (Natasha POV)**

“Black Widow.”

Her back locked up as she realized the voice was far too close, and she glanced up while masking her surprise. The smile he flashed her was deceptively vacant and charming, and reminded her of the one that Tony gave to the media. He had his hands in his pockets, which made her nervous. He didn’t _look_ like the soldier, though. 

There was his arm, for one. It certainly wasn’t made of metal. She could recall the glint of the sun off its rounded curves as she doubled over from the bullet, but his wrist was visible right where the cuffs of his shirt were scrunched up, and it was clearly skin. 

There was no recognition in his eyes, either. 

“Well, well,” she said, and managed to keep her voice unfailingly steady. “Don’t you clean up nice?” 

He glanced away, but she wasn’t fooled. He would still see any move she made. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t play along,” he said, and then looked back at her with a smile so charming she couldn’t even confirm it was fake. “I’m not in the mood, and I’m sure you’re very aware of how you look.” 

She quirked a grin, and this time it was automatic. “You don’t remember me at all, do you?” 

His smile didn’t even slip. “Should I remember you?” he asked. “Well, don’t worry, there’s a lot I’ve forgotten these days, so you’re not special. Maybe you’re just not as memorable as you think.” 

“Hmm,” she hummed, running her eyes over him. She let her lips slip up seductively, even though she was mostly just checking for weapons. But he wasn’t fooled. 

He also wasn’t armed, which was a surprise. 

And also concerning, because unarmed or not, he didn’t appear the least bit concerned about her—and if there was one thing she knew about this particular ghost, it was that he wasn’t stupid. 

“Are you here for me?” he asked, leaning forward. “Or for him? And fair warning, if it’s the latter, I’m going to be very concerned.” 

“You’d rather I was after you?” she said, raising an eyebrow. 

“Absolutely,” he said easily. “Tony can certainly take care of himself, but I am his new head of security, and I take that role very seriously. So…should I be concerned?”

“I wouldn’t hurt Tony,” she said.

“That’s not what I asked,” he pointed out. 

“Of the two of us, who do you think he should really be concerned about?” she asked after a moment. “This is a nice facade, but you know what you really are.”

“So does he,” he said, unworried. 

“And do you know _who_ you are?” she asked, and there was a flicker, the slightest chink in his armor. His eyes seemed to flash momentarily a little more blue, and he stumbled a step back. 

“What do you want from me?” he demanded. “Why are you here?” 

“You really _don’t_ , do you?” she asked in surprise. “Does Tony?” 

“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing,” he told her, and stalked back towards her until they were just a hairsbreadth apart. “But I meant what I said before. I really don’t have much patience for games, these days.” 

He wasn’t even _touching_ her, but she could feel the power charge between them. From what she’d been able to tell, his strength was on par with Steve’s. But where Steve was casual about that power, at this particular moment his erstwhile sergeant had no issues in letting his own shine through. 

She had to clamp down hard on her danger-sense, on that instinct to flee when she lost the upper hand and needed to regain her balance—but he’d left her with no where to go. They were surrounded on all sides by oblivious party-goers, so they may as well be alone. 

“You say you know who I am,” he said, his voice level and sweet as he leaned close beside her ear. “So that means you know what I’ve done. You know I’m capable of. So I won’t waste my time describing what will happen if you hurt him.” He stepped back then, his charming grin back in place. “I’ll just let you imagine that all on your own.” 

He stepped backwards again, and it was like watching him shift into another person as he did it—the veils fell from his eyes, the menace beneath that bespoke suit dissolved, and he fired off an irreverent salute that was so like the old film reels that she nearly lost her breath. 

“You enjoy your night now, Romanoff,” he told her, and the charming plastic smile was back, with a little extra smugness thrown in this time. He turned on his heel and disappeared into the crowd and back towards Tony. 

She swallowed hard and tightened her hand around the flute she was holding, so no one would see it tremble.

**Author's Note:**

> _"The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” ― Confucius_


End file.
